Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

Welcome to the Bureau of Land Management's FOIA page. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administers approximately 258 million acres of public land concentrated in 12 western States, as well as 700 million acres of federally-owned sub-surface mineral rights. Minerals, timber, rangeland fish and wildlife, wilderness and recreation areas are among the resources and activities managed by BLM.

The BLM is composed of 14 State/Center and Regional Offices. If you are requesting records from a specific State, Center, or Region you should contact the FOIA coordinator listed on the FOIA coordinators' page for the specific State office where the records may have been created. In order to ensure your requests are routed to the proper office, if you are adressing a FOIA request to the Washington Office, Headquarters, BLM, you should include an "Attention line" that addresses the letter to the "Washington Office FOIA Coordinator" on the envelope.

It is the policy of the BLM to make records available to the public to the greatest extent possible in keeping with the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Privacy Act, and Office of Management and Budget requirements. The Washington Office (WO) Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act Division/Office is responsible for administering policies, programs, and procedures to ensure compliance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Privacy Act (PA), 5 U.S.C. 552 and 5 U.S.C. 552a, respectively.

If you are making a FOIA or a Privacy Act request, you must ask for records and not ask a question. In accordance with the Department of the Interior’s FOIA regulations (43 C.F.R. 2.5), the FOIA does not require the BLM to answer questions asked in a FOIA request. Nor does the law require agencies to conduct research. In order to see more information about how to make a FOIA request, please review the FOIA questions and answers page. For a sample letter access the link provided.

For links to the FOIA web-pages of our State or Center offices please go to our Reading Room.